First Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi rolled back his request that subsidies are introduced for private companies that hire ethnic Albanians. After public outrage, Grubi said that he was simply elevating an idea and wanted to open a debate.

The idea is not to impose the hiring of Albanians or any other community, but simply to address the issues of equality, not just in rights but in obligations. Why not open the companies to a fair and equitable representation across our society. There are companies with almost 100 percent ethnic Macedonian employees, no Roma, Turks, Bosniaks, Vlachs, Serbs or Albanians. We want an equitable approach, and that would be through subsidies, or some form of cooperation with those companies, like favoring them when they apply for state funds, Grubi said.

Grubi emphasized that currently there is no concrete proposal on the table. Macedonia has been introducing “positive discrimination” in public sector hiring, especially of Albanians, ever since the 2001 civil war and this has lead to the formal hiring of about 1,500 Albanians who receive salary but are not distributed in any actual public institution to do some work.